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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29433417">Remember without holding on</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scoby/pseuds/Scoby'>Scoby</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Djarin house [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Mandalorian (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Comfort/Angst, Hopeful Ending, Planet Sorgan (Star Wars), Sad Grogu | Baby Yoda, natural character death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 14:15:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,312</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29433417</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scoby/pseuds/Scoby</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“It happens to everyone when getting old enough. For you, too, I’m sure. For humans, it just happens a lot faster.”</p><p>Winta cups Grogu’s cheek in her hand and brushes a few tears away with her thumb. In comparison to how she remembers him from her childhood, the wrinkles on his brow have deepened a little and he has grown a notch taller, though most of his features still make him look like a child - a child who has just been orphaned a second time.</p><p>-------<br/><strong>where, after Din passes away, there is only one person in the galaxy who can soothe Grogu</strong></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Din Djarin &amp; Grogu | Baby Yoda, Grogu | Baby Yoda &amp; Winta</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Djarin house [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2196798</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>74</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Remember without holding on</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>It breaks my heart to think how young Grogu will still be when Din dies. Now I'm going to make others suffer like I do - though with plenty of comfort and a hopeful ending, of course</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Grogu pulls back the lever with the silvery knob and jumps to hyperspace. It brings new tears to his eyes, even though he should have already exhausted them. This reminds him too much of his hundredth birthday, when he got this ship with all the proportions perfectly adjusted for him and even his favourite knob screwed on the hyperdrive lever. He got his first of many flying lessons right away. As the stars streak past him, he can hear the echo of a calm, soothing voice saying:</p><p><em>Always check your four C’s before a hyperspace jump: coordinates, core motivator voltage, compressor pressure and cryocooler temperature</em>.</p><p>It has become second nature for him to check all of those, but the words follow him every time he does it, always in the same voice.</p><p> </p><p>Grogu drops out of hyperspace close to a green planet he has not seen in decades. Still, it looks just like he remembered – just like the only place in the galaxy he really wants to be in right now. He steers through the atmosphere and down until he recognises a spherically shaped village among the woods. There, he lands right outside the ring of ponds.</p><p>Everything looks and feels as he remembered: krill sizzling in the ponds, frogs jumping on the brinks, kids playing but interrupting to eye at him curiously, adult humans hustling around. One young woman meets Grogu’s eyes and looks – strange but still very much familiar.</p><p>“Winta?” he asks.</p><p>“Are you looking for her?” the woman asks back. “Follow me.”</p><p>She leads the way to one of the huts and shouts: “Mama, someone’s asking for you!”</p><p>A woman comes out of the hut and then Grogu recognises that she is definitely Winta, although just a lot taller and a little curvier now, and with less smooth skin. But her brown eyes and her smile, once it lights up, are unmistakable.</p><p>“It’s you!” Winta kneels down to hug him. “Gosh, it’s been so many years! What’s happened to you?”</p><p>Only then she notices what he is carrying in his hand: a beskar shoulder pauldron with a mudhorn signet. Winta turns serious.</p><p>“Oh, is he… gone?”</p><p>Grogu cannot get the answer out of his mouth, only subtle nodding and tears. Winta wraps him in her arms again.</p><p>“I’m so sorry.”</p><p>He cries against the blue-shaded embroidery of Winta’s tunic collar until he calms down enough to speak:</p><p>“I don’t understand what happened. Nobody shot him. He wasn’t sick. Just, for some years, a bit more…”</p><p>Winta thinks back to the couple of times in her childhood when the Mandalorian visited them without his helmet. She would have estimated that he was somewhere in early middle age back then. So by now he should have been…</p><p>“….tired? Slow? Slouched? Wrinkled? Grey hair and beard?”</p><p>“Yes, yes.” Grogu nods and Winta strokes his arm that is still so tiny that it could disappear under her palm.</p><p>“It sounds very normal then. He was just old.”</p><p>“Old? But how…?”</p><p> </p><p>Grogu feels a new set of tears welling up when his mind is flooded by the memory of the night when he climbed on the edge of his father’s bed to wish him good night, but instead of his normal response - <em>sleep tight, ad’ika,</em> accompanied by a light punch on his arm - he took his hand and said:</p><p><em>I guess this is goodbye. Or who knows, maybe there’s a place where we’ll see each other again. Don’t be afraid</em>.<em> Check your four C’s before a hyperspace jump. Take care. If there’s anything I can still wish for, I wish that you’re happy. I wish that so much, ad’ika. So much.</em></p><p>Grogu stayed next to him until he fell asleep, savouring the way how he stroked the full length of his ears. But the next morning, he did not wake up anymore. Grogu tried everything: shaking him, hugging him, pulling his hair, tuning into the Force, but nothing helped. He was completely gone, breathing and heartbeat stopped.</p><p>The Mandalorians organised an elaborate funeral with rituals that lasted a full day. Dozens of people came to tell Grogu how sorry they were for him. And he became suddenly rich beyond measure, after inheriting a full armour of beskar, a small home, a ship and some savings. But he donated almost everything to sponsor Mandalorian foundlings, keeping for himself only his own ship, a portion of the money and one shoulder pauldron of the armour.</p><p>Somehow, none of that really soothed him. And nobody explained what had happened. Nobody stopped to hug him like Winta.</p><p> </p><p>“It happens to everyone when getting old enough”, she tells him now, the warmth of her palm moving in slow circles around his shoulder blade. “For you, too, I’m sure. For humans, it just happens a lot faster.”</p><p>She cups Grogu’s cheek in her hand and brushes a few tears away with her thumb. In comparison to how she remembers him from her childhood, the wrinkles on his brow have deepened a little and he has grown a notch taller, though most of his features still make him look like a child - a child who has just been orphaned a second time. Perhaps, in the standards of his species, he is not much older than Winta herself when she lost her own father.</p><p>She does not even remember much about him. After all, she still always had her mother. It feels like a cruel trick from the universe that this child’s father happened to have too short lifespan to even see him grow up.</p><p>“My mother passed away, too, a couple of years ago”, she says.</p><p>“Oh, I’m sorry…”</p><p>“Thank you. It’s ok now. I still miss her every once in a while, but it’s not anymore like I cry every day. And it will be ok for you, too, even though it might not look like it now.”</p><p>“How did it…?”</p><p>“…become ok? I don’t know. Life just – goes on. There’s stuff to do, krill to harvest, neighbour’s kids to take care of, and maybe grandkids in a while if we’re lucky… And I just accepted. It was Mama’s time. I think she’d want me to remember her but not hold on. She’d want me to be happy. Wouldn’t he want that for you, too?”</p><p>“He would.” Grogu’s voice breaks and he buries his face against Winta’s collar again. She rocks him gently from side to side as he sobs. And when that goes on long enough, his tears eventually run out.</p><p>“Will you stay for dinner?” Winta asks as he lifts his head and meets her eyes again.</p><p>“Thanks, but I think I’ll just catch it by the pond.”</p><p>“Of course.” Winta giggles just like fifty years had suddenly fallen off her. “You’re still welcome to stay as long as you like. Shall I make the guest hut ready for you?”</p><p>“That would be very nice.”</p><p> </p><p>Grogu helps out with the harvest as much as he can. And especially, he helps the whole village prepare for the next growing season, because he can sense through the Force which krill individuals are the strongest ones that should be saved for breeding. And importantly, he keeps the krill-eating frogs in check.</p><p>Before long, he finds that the sorrow does grow thinner and loosen its grip on him. He keeps the beskar piece with the mudhorn signet stored in his hut and never forgets, but little by little, he stops holding on and gives space for genuine happiness. Days on Sorgan turn into months that turn into years.</p><p>And then, Winta’s daughter gives birth to a baby who turns out Force sensitive. That is how Grogu knows that his place is here for now, at least until the baby is old enough for him to teach everything he has learned. When that is done, there is still the whole galaxy to explore.</p>
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